Frequently Asked Questions

Zacks was founded in 1980 to provide professional investors with the highest possible quality consensus data. Over the subsequent 45 years, Zacks expanded from being a consensus data provider to become the 2nd largest provider of Independent Equity Research in the US, and built an investment management business (ZIM) that manages $20 billion of client assets. Although one of our business units continues to provide consensus data, today our research team of 80 analysts covers a universe of 1,100 companies. Our own analysts' forecasts of EPS, Revenue, and Target Prices and their stock recommendations are summarized in the consensus data provided by Zacks and by the other firms who provide consensus data — FactSet, S&P, and the London Stock Exchange.

We provide consensus estimates and consensus recommendations for US and Canadian firms that have at least one sell-side analyst covering them. That number varies over time but is usually in the ballpark of 5,000 companies.

We provide consensus estimates of annual and quarterly EPS, annual and quarterly Revenue, next-5-years EPS growth, EBITDA, EBIT, Pre-Tax Income, Line of Business Revenue, Geographic Revenue, Target Prices, and some Non-Financial Metrics.

Zacks sources its individual analyst recommendations and individual target prices from brokerage firms who have authorized Zacks to distribute their individual recommendations and target prices to the world, and also from public media feeds that include brokerage firm recommendations and target prices.

Yes. We define EPS using the Zacks BNRI (Before Non-Recurring Items) definition, which is unique to Zacks, and we also define EPS using the same definition used by FactSet, S&P, LSEG, and Bloomberg, which we call the Street Definition.

In the 1980s, when investment professionals did not agree on the definition of non-recurring items, Zacks created its own standardized definition of non-recurring items, and has been using this Zacks definition to adjust both analyst estimates and reported EPS to ensure the most accurate EPS surprises and in the calculation of the Zacks Rank for 45 years. The details of the Zacks definition of non-recurring items are available upon request.

Zacks defines the EPS used in the Street Consensus as it is defined by S&P, FactSet, LSEG, and Bloomberg — diluted Earnings Per Share before non-recurring items. When analysts use different definitions of non-recurring items, Zacks, FactSet, S&P, LSEG, and Bloomberg all follow the policy of “majority rules” and calculate the consensus as the average of the definition used by most of the analysts, and will not include analysts in the consensus whose EPS forecasts use the “minority” definition of non-recurring items.

The major differences, which impact mostly high-tech companies, occur when analysts disagree on whether stock option compensation is a non-recurring item, in which case some analysts deduct it before calculating EPS while some do not. For example, if a company is followed by 10 analysts and 8 deduct stock option compensation but 2 do not, the Zacks Street consensus of EPS would include the 8 estimates of the analysts who deduct it, while the Zacks BNRI consensus would include all 10 estimates — but Zacks would reduce the EPS estimates of the 2 analysts who did not deduct options compensation by the amount of options compensation. So the Street Consensus is an average of analyst estimates, while the BNRI consensus includes Zacks adjustments to some analyst estimates. We believe that the Zacks Street Consensus differs by 2 cents or more from the Zacks BNRI consensus in 5 to 10% of companies.

We have found that most users of the Zacks consensus expect it to match the more widely available consensus provided by FactSet, S&P, and LSEG, who all use the Street definition. We use the Street definition on our individual investor website, zacks.com, and on our website for financial advisors, advisortools.zacks.com. However, we do provide the Zacks BNRI consensus to quantitative analysts who use the Zacks Research System for backtesting. If you are interested in backtesting with the Zacks Research System, please contact Adam Cohen (adamc@zacks.com)

We maintain a history of annual EPS estimates going back to 1979 and quarterly estimates going back to 1982. Zacks consensus ratings history goes back to 1985. Consensus sales estimates and price targets are maintained back to 2000. History files are available for academic research through the WRDS system, operated by the Wharton School of Business, and directly from Zacks as part of the Zacks Research System for backtesting.

Most of the contributing brokers send estimate revisions to Zacks through electronic data feeds or in Excel models, which are programmatically parsed and instantly fed into the consensus database. Other firms send PDF research reports or emails, from which we extract analyst estimates that are entered into the consensus database within 24 hours of receipt. Zacks' dedicated staff of earnings analysts examines each revision to determine if any adjustments are needed to facilitate comparability. At the end of each weekday, a quality control report is generated that lists estimates that are out of line with the current consensus using 5 criteria — e.g., for each type of forecast, Zacks maintains a time window within which an individual forecast must be reaffirmed, and if a company issues guidance prior to its actual earnings report, analyst estimates issued after the date of the guidance must be within this range. The next day the QC report is checked manually and possible errors are flagged. Once the QC report data has been checked, verified, and corrected, the data is entered into the database. The estimates database is then adjusted for corporate actions such as splits and changes to the company name, ticker, and CUSIP, using a central maintenance file.

Zacks uses the US dollar-denominated figures for US-listed issues and the Canadian dollar figures for Canadian-listed issues.

Yes, but only for buy-side institutional clients who are properly entitled by the brokerage firms to receive detailed estimate information. Please contact Adam Cohen (adamc@zacks.com) for information on our entitlement process.

Zacks was founded in the late 1970s to provide professional investors with consensus estimates. We were the first to collect analyst forecasts of EPS for fiscal quarters, the first to create consensus estimates of quarterly EPS, the first to calculate quarterly EPS surprises, and the first to use quarterly EPS surprises and changes in consensus estimates to predict future stock price changes. Over the next 45 years, as research distribution transitioned from snail mail to the internet, the major sell-side research providers reluctantly accepted FactSet and Thomson (now LSEG) as worldwide distributors of brokerage research to professional investors, and authorized them to extract analyst estimates from research reports, display the individual estimates to institutional clients, and create and distribute consensus estimates to all investors. At the same time, the research providers themselves sequentially created three consortiums — First Call, Markets.com, and Visible Alpha — to distribute their own research and create and distribute their own consensus estimates. These three consortiums were acquired over the years by what are now LSEG and S&P. So today there are four providers of Consensus Estimate Data — Zacks, S&P, FactSet, and LSEG.

The Zacks Rank, created in 1982, whose returns have been quite spectacular for over 40 years, was the first estimate revision model used in the investment industry.

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